


submerged

by 21hax



Series: how to swim [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-02
Packaged: 2018-04-02 10:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4056784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/21hax/pseuds/21hax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will's headspace, post-incarceration, dining with the devil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	submerged

Hannibal gives Will a tiny, dark smile as they dine over what he thinks to be Freddie Lounds.

He said the animal tasted frightened. Indeed, Randall Tier must have become a very frightened animal once he realized how badly awry his mission to kill Will had gone. Once he realized it would be his last attempted act of savagery as Will's violence rained down on him in a savagery that far transcended the flesh.

Will knew Hannibal would know. Would know the flavor of the meat in front of them that is not pork. Even after all the insanity he had to endure at this man's hand, somehow this almost feels like the most damning piece of evidence so far — Hannibal's dark, knowing, and satisfied gaze piercing through him.

Will tries not to think too hard about the meat he's eating — after all, it's not like it's the first time, whether he likes it or not. Even more than that, he tries not to think too hard about how easy it is to slip into Hannibal's point of view and regard the meat he's eating as mere animal meat, meant to be consumed.

He feels the flavor mostly on the back of his taste buds and even after he's swallowed the food it lingers there, acidic.

: :

"Remember the place I told you about? The only place I feel safe."

"Outside your fully lit house in the middle of the night."

Will nods slowly, repeatedly, distractedly as he looks around at Hannibal's office without seeing it, instead watching his mind play back the reel of his most recent foray into that clearing. Quietly, but viciously, he says, "I hate it now."

Hannibal tips his head to the side slightly and draws a breath through his nose as he contemplates this. "Your surroundings can no longer offer you feelings of safety, since you no longer feel sure that you are ever safe from own self."

"No, that's not it," Will mutters, an awkward smile twitching onto his face before dropping. "I no longer take comfort in safety."

"Oh?" Hannibal prompts mildly.

"Safety...makes me feel lost and confused now, like...like swimming on your back down a gently babbling river. The floating sensation wants to lull you into calmness, but your ears underwater muffle all noise into a distorted rumble that you have to fight to hear over the sound of your own amplified breathing heaving around inside your skull. And all you can look at is the sky, something often associated with...serenity, but in this instance feels ominous and compulsory, because if you turn your head to gauge your surroundings, you'll get a mouthful of water. So your senses cut off, you're left victim to whatever whimsy the river decides for you as it carries you on its unstoppable journey."

Hannibal continues to hold eye contact as he thinks before saying, "On its surface, this scenario appears as a picturesque joining with inner and outer peace. But below the surface, you feel trapped. At the mercy of your environment. Defenseless, with your belly facing up in a twisted mockery of submission."

Will stares at Hannibal blankly.

"This is what safety feels like to you," Hannibal states more than asks.

"It does now, yes."

"I can't help but wonder what being unsafe feels like to you."

Will takes a deep breath and leans back in his chair, his hands sliding up and down against the arms of the chair as he looks around the office. "Unsafety has recently unlocked its true potential to me, Dr. Lecter.

: :

"What do you see when you fantasize about killing me?"

"What do _you_ see?"

Will never expresses it — or at least, doesn't try to express it, though he bets Hannibal can read it on his face plain as day — but he always enjoys the way Hannibal humors him with responses when Will reflects his questions back at him.

A minuscule twitch of a smirk lifts the corners of Hannibal's lips, as his eyes flick over to the two tall windows of his office. "I don't want you dead, Will."

Will gives a mirthless laugh and raises his eyes up from his hands on his lap, to catch eyes with Hannibal just as he looks back from the window. "You may like me better with my life, Dr. Lecter, but I do not believe for a _second_ that you would not delight in ending it."

Hannibal's lips purse slightly as he tries to smother a deepening smirk. He looks back to the window and slowly draws in a breath as he leans back in his seat. "I see...the light in your eyes, fighting to remain intact."

Will takes a shuddering breath as he closes his eyes and envisions it from Hannibal's point of view.

_Hannibal reaches out to him, his long fingers closing slowly and intimately around his tight throat._

"I see you desperately clinging to your consciousness. You're not fighting for your life — you've already accepted your fate, and are reveling in the peaceful state that comes to those in their last moments before death. No, you're no longer fighting for your life, you're fighting to remain present and aware, so as to witness its beautiful undoing."

_He registers the feeling of constriction against his windpipe, but hardly cares as it steadily grows, his attention focused instead on the look on Hannibal's face — euphoria._


End file.
